


Map's Edge

by amaronith



Category: Kingdom Hearts, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-18
Updated: 2010-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaronith/pseuds/amaronith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What <i>did</i> happen to Donatello when he vanished?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Map's Edge

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic about what might have happened to the Donatello of the 'Same As It Never Was' universe in the 2003 Ninja Turtles cartoon. It takes place during the First Kingdom Hearts game.

When he woke up, he was face down on cobblestone behind a pile of boxes. Mentally running through the areas of New York where there were still cobble stone streets (Red Hook, the West Village, Bay Ridge, Jamaica...), Donatello slowly staggered to his feet and looked around the alleyway. This looked _nothing_ like New York (not even the West Village at its best) and he climbed up the boxes, onto the rooftops to get a better look around. The...wherever he was- town- seemed to be made up of three districts, though the one Donatello was in seemed to be the only one with shops that were currently open, the second one boasted a hotel, a bell tower and Donatello could hear the sound of a fountain, and the third district seemed entirely residential. Donatello felt a tug toward the second district, though, so that was where he went.

Wherever he was, it was not that big. Maybe about the size of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn with all three districts combined together, and the buildings were all squat and oddly colored and slightly misshapen, unlike in New York where everything was tall, boxy and, to Donatello's mind in his more cynical moments, looked exactly alike. It was more like a little town than a city, but it still had shadows for Donatello to hide in, and that was the only comforting thought he had at the moment; that and the feel of his bo in his hand, though he couldn't quite remember pulling it off his back. He lurked in the shadows, and tried to see if he could overhear anything to give him a clue as to where he was, what had happened, and if anyone had been driven into a panic over mutant turtles wandering around elsewhere in the town.

The shadows moved with him in a way that had Donatello's bo cracking down on the head of the golden-eyed thing before it was even fully formed, and wasn't that always the way? Trouble always seemed to find him and his brothers, except that his brothers _weren't here_\- it was just _him_, and he had no idea what hap-

"_Fire!_" There was a shout from the side, and Donatello dodged as the fire ball crashed into the writhing knot of shadows before he even thought that just maybe the guy was aiming at _him_, but then he turned and there was a little kid standing there with a duck and a God-Only-Knows-What with far too many zippers between the three. Donnie figured that just maybe for once he wasn't the strangest thing walking around these parts. "Are you alright?" the kid asked, his eyes impossibly blue as he shouldered the giant key he carried. It seemed to vanish in a swirl of light.

 

"I- yeah. Yeah, thanks." Donatello looked down at his hand, startled, when his bo staff disappeared in a similar manner. Maybe all this was really some bizarre dream.

The kid smiled at him then, bright and happy and relieved. "Good. I'm Sora, and these are my friends Donald," he indicated the duck, "and Goofy." He pointed to the tall one.

Donatello glanced between the three. "Donatello."

"You're new around here, huh?" Sora's smile was easy, infectious, and reminded Donatello strongly of Michelangelo.

"I don't even know where here _is_." Just that it _wasn't_ with his brothers, _wasn't_ in New York and _wasn't_ even on _Earth_ with the way his luck was running.

"This is Traverse Town," Sora said, his eyes turning a little sad (no _no_ that's _wrong_\- Mikey's eyes shouldn't look like that-!). "Where travelers with strong hearts come after their world has been destroyed by the Heartless."

"Heartless?" Donatello frowned.

"Creatures that steal people's hearts," Donald supplied, eyeing Donatello.

"I see." Donatello nodded. "But nothing like that attacked my home. Just Ultimate Draco."

"Are you sure he wasn't a Heartless?" Donald asked, crossing his arms. "Some people get too greedy, using the power of the Dark and-"

"_No_." Donatello's voice was whip crack sharp before he even realized he was speaking, and he shook his head. "If my world was destroyed, and those who have strong hearts make it here, then where are my brothers?"

"Brothers?" Goofy asked.

"Yes. I have three brothers, Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo." Donatello crossed his arms. "If I ended up here, why aren't they here as well?" Or Master Splinter? Or April and Casey?

"The Heartless could've taken them," Donald said callously, earning looks from Sora and Goofy that the duck ignored. "Or they just ended up as summons."

"Do you remember-?" Sora started to speak, but Donatello cut him off.

"You're not listening to me. _They're alive._" Donatello's voice was solid and firm, though his pitch never changed. "I would know it if something happened."

Goofy was nodding. "Maybe they're on another world-"

"_No,_" Donatello repeated, as though he were scolding a dog (and maybe he was). "My world is _still there_, it _wasn't_ destroyed."

Sora's head tilted, frowning with curiosity. "...The Heartless never attacked your world?"

Finally, they were _listening_. "Just Ultimate Draco." And while the bastard was heartless, he didn't think it was the same thing Sora was talking about, and his mind flashed to the living shadows.

Sora frowned again before nodding determinedly. "You should go see Leon. Come on, I'll take you to him."

–

Leon turned out to be a human with a scar between his eyes and a _talent_ for speaking without actually _speaking_. To his right was a girl with short black hair and an easy smile that made Donatello want to check his pockets (pickpocket, thief, _ninja_), and to his left was another girl with brown hair, gentle green eyes and a different sort of easy smile as she offered him a cup of tea (nurturer, mage, _healer_). "Tell us the story again," Leon said, leaning against the wall with his long legs crossed (did anyone really _need_ that many belts?) and his gray eyes nearly unreadable.

"A creature named Ultimate Draco attacked my family and me in our home. The next thing I know I was waking up here." Donatello was starting to get frustrated, repeating the same thing over and over again like a broken record.

"And there weren't Shadows, or anything like that in your world when he attacked?" the dark haired girl, Yuffie, asked him, leaning forward.

"No."

"You're sure?"

"_Yes_." Donatello frowned at her. "It was just him, fused together by Nexus magic."

Aeris, the healer woman, placed a hand on his arm. "Donatello, it's alright-"

He shook her off. "_How is it alright?!_ That _maniac_ has my family and is doing who _knows_ what to them and I am _stuck_ here when I should be helping _them_, and I am getting _really annoyed_ that everyone is insisting that they're _dead_!"

Aeris smiled at him, serene and wise beyond her years. "Donatello, if the Heartless haven't destroyed your world, then there's a chance you can get _back_."

Donatello eyed her. _Of course_ there was a way _back_. He just had to figure out- "How?"

She glanced at Leon, who pushed away from the wall. "Cid."

Donatello blinked after Leon before following him out of the room.

–

Cid was a grizzled blond man with a cigarette clamped between his teeth and a glare at Leon as he strolled into the workshop without knocking. "What?"

"This guy needs a gummi ship," Leon said, jerking his thumb at Donatello.

Donatello looked at Leon like he'd grown another head. "_A what?_"

Cid frowned at Donatello, outright _scowled_ at Leon, and shifted his cigarette from one side of his mouth to the other. "I s'pose I can do that."

"He needs it with a full warp drive," Leon added, and Cid lifted an eyebrow.

"That right?"

Leon gave Cid one of those looks that spoke more than Leon himself ever did. Cid muttered a curse and frowned at Donatello again.

Donatello frowned back. "What is a gummi ship?"

Cid muttered another curse, taking a long drink from a mug that held something Donatello would've bet was spiked and met Donatello's eyes. "Are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna come over here?"

Donatello glanced at Leon, who nodded and walked out, leaving Donatello to step further into the shop as Cid started explaining about gummi blocks and travel between worlds.

–

Donatello was surprised to find that Cid was actually pretty relaxing to be around. He bitched and grumbled but he still answered all of Donnie's questions without hesitation and together they came up with a blueprint for a ship that should get Donatello wherever he needed to go with minimum fuss and a ton of fire power (he was more surprised to find out what Cid was drinking had been _tea_, straight up plain and simple and stronger than any coffee Donnie had ever made). They argued over construction (aesthetics versus raw power), over names ("Why the hell does everything you build have the word _turtle_ in it?!" "What the hell is a _chocobo_, then?!"), remembering when to eat (that was more Them versus Aeris, though, and Aeris always won), and when Donatello's dreams (nightmares of returning home to the corpses of his family mostly, though sometimes there were dreams- more memories than anything else – of Raphael's hands cradling his jaw as they kissed, Leonardo's fingers stretching him wide, Mikey's eyes laughing up at him from between his legs because his mouth was otherwise occupied) got to be too much (or he got too loud), he went out and fought the Heartless (and the _looks_ he was given when he mentioned wanting to study the creatures, even from Aeris who was more kind than the others but still warned him off, had made Donatello give up the idea completely save for the little wistful moments when he tried to figure out just what the hell _was_ the gooshy green stuff that healed his wounds).

Other times, when Cid just got sick of having him around, he sparred against Leon (Leon who never asked, but would always listen; Leon whose gaze could be as knowing as Aeris's when he looked at Donatello), or Yuffie (Yuffie who _always_ asked, who loved the stories he told of his world, who was amazed when she found out he could drink Cid's tea without getting sick but couldn't stomach the smell of cooking sausage), and he even sparred against Sora a few times (no _polish_ to his moves, really, but the boy had exuberance and spontaneity on his side, as well as the built in distraction of having his weapon be a giant _key_ that had _stars_ fly out of it when it hit things, and Donatello had only won the first match by the skin of his teeth and a lucky shot, but Sora had _learned_ after that, and Donatello never won another match against him again).

By the time his gummi ship was completed (called the Sahagin by Cid with a glare at Donatello, who could only grin back at him), Donatello's nightmares had been getting steadily worse, steadily more violent and he was _stuck_ with the fear that something was horribly, horribly wrong with his brothers.

"We'll miss you," Aeris had told him, giving him a 'care package' that consisted of megalixers and a star map.

"Don't know how far it'll get you," Cid had grumbled as Donatello was looking the map over. "I mean, even the map only goes so far."

"On my world, hundreds of years ago they believed the Earth was flat, and that if you went to the edge of the map, you'd fall off the world's edge and into the land of dragons."

Cid grinned at him. "You can handle dragons."

Donatello had grinned back before climbing into his ship and taking off out into the great unknown. It would take him a long time to find his world again, he knew, and he could only hope that his brothers could hold out against _whatever_ it was he knew they were fighting.

He had a feeling it was something far worse than dragons.

**Author's Note:**

> \- I won't believe it if someone hasn't done this before, but I'm too scared to check for myself D: I mean, I was just like "What if...?" and then I had to sit down and write this and I'm not sure if I should apologize for it or not. But hey, everyone writes a SAINW fic, right?
> 
> \- I don't care if Kingdom Hearts spelled it Aerith. I am a hardcore old school Final Fantasy VII fan, and that means it's Aeris.
> 
> \- For those confused: in Final Fantasy VII, the Sahagin was a turtle-like monster that carried a spear. Sadly, they weren't in the Kingdom Hearts games, but that's forgivable I suppose.


End file.
